Allen’s Astrophysical Quantities

723 Pages·2002·59.74 MB·English

by  Arthur N. Cox (eds.)

Allen's
Astrophysical
Quantities
Fourth Edition
Allen's
Astrophysical
Quantities
Fourth Edition
Arthur N. Cox
Editor
AIP
eR~ 'Springer
ArthurN. Cox
Theoretical Division
Los Alamos National Laboratory MS B288
P.O. Box 1663
Los Alamos, NM 87545
USA
anc@ lanl.gov
Cover illustration: An international team of astronomers, led by Dr. Wendy Freedman of the Observatories of the Carnegie
Institution of Washington, Robert Kennicutt of the University of Arizona, and Jeremy Mould of the Australian National
University observed this spiral galaxy NGC 4414 on 13 different occasions over the course of two months.
(AURA/STScJJNASA)
In 1995, the majestic spiral galaxy NGC 4414 was imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope as part of the HST Key Project on
the Extragalactic Distance Scale. Images were obtained with Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) through three
different color filters. Based on their discovery and careful brightness measurements of variable stars in NGC 4414, the Key
Project astronomers were able to make an accurate determination of the distance to the galaxy.
The resulting distance to NGC 4414, 19.1 megaparsecs or about 60 million light-years, along with similarly determined
distances to other nearby galaxies, contributes to astronomers' overall knowledge of the rate of expansion of the universe. The
Hubble constant (Ho) is the ratio of how fast galaxies are moving away from us to their distance from us. This astronomical
value is used to determine distances, sizes, and the intrinsic luminosities for many objects in our uni verse, and the age of the
universe itself.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cox,Arthur
Allen 's astrophysical quantities/editor, Arthur Cox.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
Additional material to this book can be downloaded from http://extras.springer.com.
1. Astrophysical-Tables. 1. Cox, Arthur N.
QB461.A7685. 1999
523.01'021-dc21 98-53154
ISBN 978-1-4612-7037-9 ISBN 978-1-4612-1186-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4612-1186-0
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987654321
Preface
This handbook is the result of compilations and writing of ninety authors who have worked over a
period of nine years to revise the famous Allen's Astrophysical Quantities. The need for such a
revision had been known since shortly after the last edition edited by C.W. Allen in 1972. Even
though his 1973 edition remained in print through the late 1980s, Allen himself called for help in
revising the book in that third edition Preface. His death unfortunately prevented any revision, and
only a few attempts known to me were made by interested astronomers. By 1990, with the third
edition completely outdated, Arlo Landolt convinced the American Institute of Physics that they should
undertake extensive revisions of the Allen book. How my name came up, in late 1990, I do not know,
but once friends discovered I had been solicited by the AlP, they all encouraged me to find the various
astrophysics experts to prepare this new edition, published jointly by the AlP and Springer-Verlag.
The task of finding suitable authors and anonymous referees for the chapters was made easier by
the help of Peter Boyce at the American Astronomical Society and its publications board. Chairpersons
Caty Pilachowski, Hugh Van Horn, Jim Liebert, and Bob Hanisch suggested and helped recruit many
contributors. Numerous AAS officials, especially Roger Bell, helped me and the authors interface with
AlP and Springer.
The basic structure of the earlier Allen editions has been followed, but many changes were
necessary. For example, radio astronomy was represented by Allen with a page-long table of sources
and a few supplementary ones plus some data about solar radio emission. Today a complete chapter is
necessary, and even that does not seem to be as much as the author and I would have liked to include.
Other advances in astrophysics have required us to include new chapters for infrared, ultraviolet, X-ray,
and gamma-ray and neutrino astronomy. The explosion in observations of our solar system has resulted
in a great expansion in information about these nearby bodies, as well as for our Sun itself. Later in the
development of this book we found that we needed to add a chapter about stellar evolution because the
level of understanding essentially the entire lives of stars had matured enormously. Most dramatically,
modem large telescopes have revealed huge quantities of data about galaxies, galaxy clusters, and their
exotic emissions. Three separate chapters cover different aspects of this material. A much expanded
Cosmology chapter was needed to include our current understanding of the structure of the Universe.
Finally, we have added many supplemental tables including an attempt to list the world's largest optical
telescopes, with the help of Kari Parker, that surely will be out of date soon.
While writing the chapters, many authors found that they needed some specialists to supply and
even write sections that were beyond their current knowledge. These section authors are not given in
the table of contents, but only at the start of the sections where they contributed. Thanks are due to
these scientists who have supplied important information that we found relevant, often rather late in
the book development. Their submissions could easily merit a mention in the table of contents, but the
complicated process of assembling this greatly revised handbook and keeping its structure in control
has resulted in this special format.
Readers must realize that a project that involves ninety otherwise very busy astrophysicists is bound
to be uneven. Some authors were able to get their material to me as early as mid-1992, while others
were not even solicited by me for last-minute data until mid-1998. Our plan to include updates to
a uniform date for all chapters could not be carried out because of its complexity, but some data as
recent as the summer of 1999 are included. Readers are invited to contact individual authors directly
for details. Our hope is that we have adequately pointed the way to the extensive literature for each
subject.
v
vi I PREFACE
Some astrophysicists have already decided to adopt our carefully compiled data as standard for their
own special lists. This is reasonable, since this new Allen edition has been prepared by the world's
experts in the various areas of astrophysics. One thing we have learned is that definitive data depend
on interpretations for those last little details, and the best source for the most current and accurate data
is always the experts. We hope our authors are these.
The contents of this new edition of Allen will be available in electronic form with many
tables and graphs "live" for interactive searching, correlating, interpolating, and so forth. The
electronic version will be available by subscription and kept up-to-date on the publisher's web site
(www.springer-ny.com) and will also be available as a CD-ROM for use on a Windows PC. At the
minimum, these electronic data will greatly assist in future editions.
Every publishing undertaking ends with regrets that some things could not be included. Thus
all should realize that our book is a good reference book, but it still misses, for example, the newly
published definitive NIST physical constants, the recent discovery of a satellite around the asteroid (45)
Eugenia, the growing list of brown dwarf candidates, a new and unexpected class of intrinsic variable
(Gamma Doradus) stars, and the latest gamma burst explosions now optically detected from the far
reaches of our Universe. The organization of these new astrophysical quantities into an additional
concise revised-again edition awaits future generations of authors, I hope as skilled and dedicated as
ours.
Los Alamos, New Mexico Arthur N. Cox
October 1999 [email protected]
Contents
Preface v
Contributors xv
1 Introduction
Arthur N. Cox 1
1.1 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Astronomical Symbols ............... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.3 Astronomical and Astrophysical Journals ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2 General Constants and Units
Arthur N. Cox 7
2.1 Mathematical Constants ..................................... 7
2.2 Physical Constants ........................................ 8
2.3 General Astronomical Constants ................................ 12
2.4 Astronomical Constants Involving Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ., 13
2.5 Units ................................................ , 17
2.6 Electric and Magnetic Unit Relations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ., 22
3 Atoms and Molecules
Werner Diippen 27
3.1 Online Databases and Other Sources 27
3.2 Elements, Atomic Mass, and Solar-System Abundance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
3.3 Excitation, Ionization, and Partition Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3.4 Ionization Potentials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3.5 Electron Affinities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3.6 Atomic Cross Sections for Electronic Collisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3.7 Atomic Radii . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.8 Particles of Modem Physics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
3.9 Molecules ............................................. . 45
3.10 Plasmas 47
4 Spectra
Charles Cowley, Wolfgang L Wiese, Jeffrey Fuhr, and Ludmila A. Kuznetsova 53
4.1 Online Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
4.2 Terminology for Atomic States, Levels, Terms, etc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
4.3 Electronic Configurations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4.4 Spectrum Line Intensities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
4.5 Relative Strengths Within Multiplets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
4.6 Wavelengths and Wave Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
4.7 Atomic Oscillator Strengths for Allowed Lines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
4.8 Nuclear Spin and Hyperfine Structure: Low-Level Hyperfine Transitions ....... . 78
4.9 Forbidden Line Transition Probabilities ....... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
vii
viii / CONTENTS
4.10 Spectra of Diatomic Molecules ................................. 83
4.11 Energy Levels ........................................... 85
4.12 Transitions ............................................. 87
4.13 Selection Rules: Dipole Radiation ............................... 89
5 Radiation
J.J. Keady and D.P. Kilcrease 95
5.1 Radiation Quantities and Interrelations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 95
5.2 Refractive Index and Average Polarizability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 100
5.3 Absorption and Scattering by Particles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 102
5.4 Photoionization and Recombination .............................. 106
5.5 X-Ray Attenuation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 109
5.6 Absorption of Material of Stellar Interiors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 11 0
5.7 Absorption of Material of the Solar Photosphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 114
5.8 Solar Photoionization Rates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 114
5.9 Free-Free Absorption and Emission ...... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 115
5.10 Reflection from Metallic Mirrors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 117
5.11 Visual Photometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 117
6 Radio Astronomy
Robert M. HjeUming 121
6.1 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 121
6.2 Atmospheric Window and Sky Brightness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 123
6.3 Radio Wave Propagation .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 125
6.4 Radio Telescopes and Arrays .................................. 128
6.5 Radio Emission and Absorption Processes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 131
6.6 Radio Astronomy References ......... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 140
7 Infrared Astronomy
A. T. Tokunaga 143
7.1 Useful Equations; Units. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 143
7.2 Atmospheric Transmission. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 144
7.3 Background Emission. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 146
7.4 Detectors and Signal-to-Noise Ratios. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 148
7.5 Photometry ().. < 30 JLm) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 149
7.6 Photometry ().. > 30 JLm) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 154
7.7 Infrared Line List ......................................... 155
7.8 Dust . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 158
7.9 Solar System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 161
7.10 Stars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 163
7.11 Extragalactic Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 164
8 Ultraviolet Astronomy
Terry J. Teays 169
8.1 Ultraviolet Wavelengths. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 169
8.2 Ultraviolet Astronomy Satellite Missions .... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 170
8.3 Significant Atlases and Catalogs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 172
8.4 Interstellar Extinction in the Ultraviolet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 174
8.5 Commonly Observed Ultraviolet Emission Lines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 175
CONTENTS / ix
8.6 Ultraviolet Spectral Classification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
8.7 Ultraviolet Spectrophotometric Standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
9 X-Ray Astronomy
Frederick D. Seward 183
9.1 Useful Conversions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
9.2 Characteristic X-Ray Transitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . ..... 184
9.3 Emission Mechanisms and Spectra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
9.4 Transmission of X-Rays Through the Interstellar Medium ................ . 194
9.5 Cosmic X-Ray Sources ..................................... . 198
9.6 Diffuse Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
9.7 X-Ray Astronomy Missions .................................. . 205
10 V-Ray and Neutrino Astronomy
R.E. Lingenfelter and R.E. Rothschild 207
10.1 Continuum Emission Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
10.2 Line Emission Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
10.3 Scattering and Absorption Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
10.4 Astrophysical v-Ray Observations .................... . 216
10.5 Neutrinos in Astrophysics ......................... . 235
10.6 Current Neutrino Observatories ...................... . 237
11 Earth
Gerald Schubert and Richard L. Walterscheid 239
11.1 Oblate Ellipsoidal Reference Figure ...... . 240
11.2 Mass and Moments of Inertia .......... . 240
11.3 Gravitational Potential and Relation to Products of Inertia . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
11.4 Topography ...................................... . 243
11.5 Rotation (Spin) and Revolution About the Sun .................. . 244
11.6 Gravity ......................................... . 245
11.7 Geoid ........................................... . 245
11.8 Coordinates ................................... . 246
11.9 Solid Body Tides ................................ . 246
11.10 Geological Time Scale .............................. . . . . . . . 248
11.11 Glaciations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
11.12 Plate Tectonics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
11.13 Earth Crust .................................... . 252
11.14 Earth Interior ................................... . 255
11.15 Earth Atmosphere, Dry Air at Standard Temperature and Pressure (STP) 257
11.16 Composition of the Atmosphere ....................... . 258
11.17 Water Vapor ................................... . 259
11.18 Homogeneous Atmosphere, Scale Heights and Gradients ........ . 259
11.19 Regions of Earth's Atmosphere and Distribution with Height ...... . 260
11.20 Atmospheric Refraction and Air Path. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
11.21 Atmospheric Scattering and Continuum Absorption . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
11.22 Absorption by Atmospheric Gases at Visible and Infrared Wavelengths . 268
11.23 Thermal Emission by the Atmosphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
11.24 Ionosphere .................................... . 271
11.25 Night Sky and Aurora ............................. . 279
x I CONTENTS
11.26 Geomagnetism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 282
11.27 Meteorites and Craters ...................................... 285
12 Planets and Satellites
David J. Tholen, Victor G. Tejfel, and Arthur N. Cox 293
12.1 Planetary System. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 293
12.2 Orbits and Physical Characteristics of Planets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 294
12.3 Photometry of Planets and Asteroids. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 298
12.4 Physical Conditions on Planets ................................. 300
12.5 Names, Designations, and Discoveries of Satellites ..................... 302
12.6 Satellite Orbits and Physical Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 303
12.7 Moon ................................................ 308
12.8 Planetary Rings .......................................... 311
13 Solar System Small Bodies
Richard P. Binzel, Martha S. Hanner, and Duncan I. Steel 315
13.1 Asteroids or Minor Planets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 315
13.2 Comets ............................................... 321
13.3 Zodiacal Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 328
13.4 Infrared Zodiacal Emission. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 331
13.5 Meteoroids and Intetplanetary Dust. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 333
14 SUD
William C. Livingston 339
14.1 Basic Data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 340
14.2 Interior Model ........................................, . .. 341
14.3 Solar Oscillations ......................................... 342
14.4 Photospheric-Chromospheric Model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 348
14.5 Spectral Lines ........................................... 351
14.6 Spectral Distribution. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 353
14.7 Limb Darkening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 355
14.8 Corona................................................ 357
14.9 Solar Rotation ........................................... 362
14.10 Granulation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 364
14.11 Surface Magnetism and its Tracers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 364
14.12 Sunspots. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 367
14.13 Sunspot Statistics ......................................... 370
14.14 Flares and Coronal Mass Ejections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 373
14.15 Solar Radio Emission ....................................... 375
15 Normal Stars
John S. Drilling and Arlo U. Landolt 381
15.1 Stellar Quantities and Interrelations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 381
15.2 Spectral Classification. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 383
15.3 Photometric Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 385
15.4 Stellar Atmospheres. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 393
15.5 Stellar Structure .... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 395